Navigating to Commonly/Recently Used Dirs, in Terminal (Unix/OS X)

Would it be possible to save certain locations that I've used recently/commonly (like /folder/folder/folder/) so that I don't have to manually开发者_JS百科 navigate through each dir between my current and destination dir?

Sort of like alt-tab, but for paths. I'm on OS X, but perhaps this can be done using basic Unix skills?

Thanks!

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If you set up your shell to save commands history, using Ctrl+R hotkey may save you some time, which performs search of previously executed commands as you type. Another good thing to know is that most shells provide you with file/directory name completion if you press Tab key once/twice, which is also of great help.

EDIT: you can also make some symbolic links inside single (e.g. home) directory to quickly access directories. Use ln -s <path to target file/directory> <path to link> command. Target paths could either be relative or absolute.

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One way that works in most shells (but is slightly different for different shells) is the directory stack. You can use pushd to push a directory, popd to pop the top directory from the stack, and dirs to move directories around and switch to directories in the middle of the stack. I just checked, and the man page for pushd on Mac OS X is useless; use the man page for your shell (likely bash) and search for pushd, etc. there.

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In Bash, you can add directories to the CDPATH variable. If you try to cd to a directory that doesn't begin with a slash then the directories listed in CDPATH are searched for a matching destination.

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In zsh there are a few options.

A shell can keep a stack of the most recent few directories you've cd'ed into if you use setopt AUTO_PUSHD. With completion set up (autoload -U compinit; compinit), type cd + and press tab, then you'll get a numbered list:

~% cd /Library
/Library% cd /System/Library
/System/Library% cd +
1 -- /Library
2 -- /Users/nicholas

So the most recent directory is +1, etc. (You can reverse this, as I do, with setopt PUSHD_MINUS so you use - instead of + and the most recent directory is -1).

Another option is directory hashing; you can create pseudo-"home directories" (~whatever). Some of mine, for example:

  hash -d v=/Volumes
  hash -d a=/Volumes/BanjoArchive
  hash -d pep=/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current
  hash -d sp=$(print /Library/Python/*/site-packages(On[1]))

So I can just type cd ~pep or cd pep (if unambiguous) or even pep (if AUTO_CD is set). In situations other than cd, you can use the directory stack with ~ as well, e.g. ~+1 or ~-1.

zsh can even replace shell variables after a ~ with the AUTO_NAME_DIRS option, though I don't use it because it would clutter the variable list. Nevertheless, here's an example:

~%setopt AUTO_NAME_DIRS
~%v=/Volumes

~%cd ~v
~v%pwd
/Volumes

zsh also supports cdpath as one of the other answers mentions. For example, I have:

cdpath=($HOME /Volumes)

so I can just use the name of a mounted volume or directory in my home directory to cd to it.

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I stumbled upon Z and it has solved all of my dir-navigating issues.

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Either an alias (via placing it into your ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile depending on setup):

alias godocs='cd /home/me/my_docs`

or pushd/popd as @Jeremiah suggests.

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Take a look at "Cd Deluxe" for a greatly improved "change directory" command: http://www.plan10.com/cdd/.